Organizations, such as businesses, often rely heavily on knowledge within the organization itself. One example of this reliance is training. Experienced employees are often called upon to train new employees. In addition to training the new employee how to do the job, the experienced employee may also share advice based on lessons the experienced employee learned by doing the same job. Another example is a “resident expert.” Often an employee, through education or experience or both, has become particularly knowledgeable about a topic. Other employees who need advice or information about this topic may contact the “resident expert.” Other examples of important corporate knowledge are internal standards. Internal standards for a procedure or product may be generated and updated by the persons in the organization who are responsible for the procedure or product. The internal standards may be used by the responsible team to ensure that procedures and policies are followed. Further, the internal standards may be used as a guide to quickly train new members of the team. Finally, internal standards may be used by other divisions of the organization as a basis for forming their own standards or for interacting with the responsible team.
Organizational knowledge may be very valuable to an organization. A number of problems exist, however, which may cause the organization to not fully utilize, or even realize the extent of, this organizational knowledge. One problem is that organizational knowledge is often not captured from the knowledgeable employee and documented for use by others. Unless knowledge is documented, it is possible that others within the organization will not be able to determine where particular organizational knowledge resides, and thus the knowledge will be underutilized. Additionally, if a knowledgeable employee leaves the organization without first documenting his knowledge, that knowledge will be lost to the organization. Another problem is that, while an employee may be particularly knowledgeable, until that knowledge has been identified, other persons in the organization (including in other divisions of the organization) may be unaware of the existence of the “resident expert.”
Further, many organizations are becoming increasingly globalized. For example, one company may have corporate headquarters located in one state, research and development facilities located in a second state, manufacturing operations in a number of other states, and retail facilities worldwide. Part of the reason for this globalization is the ease with which communications between these locations may occur. While the technology exists to permit interaction and collaboration among persons at different locations in the organization, current systems do not provide sufficient structure to identify sources of knowledge and enable interaction between persons having knowledge and persons seeking knowledge. Not only does the organizational knowledge need to be globally accessible, but interaction must also be supported.
Finally, in addition to merely capturing the knowledge, it is most effective to provide for interaction and collaboration based on the knowledge. Rather than simply requesting persons to submit any knowledge that they might have, even if directed to a particular topic, it is effective to instead focus the interested persons on a project, goal, or purpose. From the interaction and collaboration that follows based on the project, the knowledge can be captured and documented.
In addition to systems that permit limited interaction, systems also exist that permit some documentation of organizational knowledge. Some of these systems may include mere cataloging of information or mere answering of questions. These systems, however, are limited to a single facet of knowledge, such as “best practices” or internal standards. The systems may also be limited in the persons that may participate. Additionally, these systems are often relatively static and non-interactive. For example, some of these systems may be simply a list of frequently asked questions. At best, some systems refer a user to the person who supplied the knowledge that the user is accessing. The currently available systems do not provide sufficient interaction and/or collaboration with other users to achieve a common purpose based on the knowledge, nor do the current systems provide a dynamic, constantly updating knowledge system. One exemplary existing system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,924,072, entitled “Knowledge Management System and Method.” This system provides for the submission of knowledge items by a user, as well as the use of the knowledge items by a second user. The second user may submit feedback about the knowledge item. However, there is no interaction or collaboration between the users; further, the system is designed merely to acquire knowledge.
Additionally, existing systems do not provide an environment that identifies related communities of practice and allows these communities to collaborate and/or merge into a single community of practice.
The present invention is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems or disadvantages associated with the prior art.